


Not All Of Them Are Visible

by Cameron_McKell



Series: Upon Further Review [2]
Category: Tron (Movies), Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Legacy (2010)
Genre: Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Scars, Tron Fandom Ship Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-19
Updated: 2013-09-19
Packaged: 2017-12-27 01:21:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/972664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cameron_McKell/pseuds/Cameron_McKell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They carry them differently, but they both have them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not All Of Them Are Visible

“There's an irregularity in your render.”

 

Sam cracked open one eye, then blinked repeatedly in an attempt to bring Tron's way-too-close chin into focus; as it was only inches from his eye, he wasn't very successful. “Huh?”

 

“There's an irregularity in your render,” Tron repeated, and shifted back enough to make eye contact. When Sam's sleep-fogged mind still didn't cycle over into comprehension, he reached out and traced one fingertip delicately over a thin, mostly-straight line of bare skin within the texture of the User's hair.

 

Shifting away with a mumbled “Tickles,” Sam stretched, but paused midway through the action, as his brain _finally_ caught up to what was happening.

 

“It's just a scar.”

 

“A scar?” Tron parroted the word back curiously.

 

“Yeah,” Sam ran a hand through his hair over the mark, then settled back down on the bed. He waited while Tron got comfortable half resting on top of him again, then wrapped an arm around him. “It's part of a User's self-repair processes; if a person's injury falls under a set of certain criteria – mostly to do with width, depth, and placement – the skin and tissue regrow stronger to try and prevent it from happening again. Or something like that; I'm not a doctor, so I don't know all the technical details.”

 

Tron nodded slightly as he filed the information away, coincidentally nuzzling the curving line of circuitry by Sam's neck, then craned his head up and around, to try and see the spot again, “The stronger tissue is smooth by definition, then?”

 

“Sometimes; sometimes the hair grows back in, but in a different color like white or silver.” He could practically see the question forming in Tron's eyes, so he shifted his hand up just enough to brush the circuit on the program's back. He smirked a little as Tron melted into him, and conveniently forgot his question about the inconsistency and unpredictability of Users.

 

Tron couldn't be distracted for long, though, before he found a new question, “How did you get the scar?”

 

Sam thought about it for a while, comparing the various injuries he'd gained over a life of recklessness with this particular scar, trying to remember the corresponding incident. It took a few moments, but eventually it came to him.

 

Then he went completely still.

 

When the hand that had been lightly teasing his dorsal circuit toward periwinkle suddenly stopped, Tron looked up, already reloading successful arguments and persuasion tactics in order to continue.

 

Which he promptly erased at the look on Sam's face.

 

“I'm sorry; you don't have to tell me.”

 

“Nah, it's all right,” Sam distractedly replied, then pulled himself together. “It happened when I was a kid – you know, still in development?” He waited for the program's nod, then continued, “Well, I was riding my bike too fast through the rain, and lost control. I scraped up my hands and knees pretty bad and knocked my head hard on the pavement. Gram threw a fit when she saw me, then took me to get stitches and have the scrapes cleaned up.”

 

He could leave it here, move on, and Tron would accept his answer without pushing for more... but Tron was one of the few people who would fully understand the impact of this particular story in his life, and one of fewer still he trusted to share his pain with. “It was right after Dad had disappeared, and I was having trouble coping with the news reporters implying that he'd run away and abandoned everything.” 'Abandoned me' was unspoken but heavily implied, and fully understood by the both of them.

 

As Tron stiffened above him and tried to pull away, it reoccurred to Sam that the program _also_ had painful memories from that time frame; Tron spoke of his Rectification so casually – _too_ casually, really – that it was easy to forget now and then how traumatic the whole thing must have been for him, and how much it continued to affect him.

 

“Hey, come on,” Sam murmured softly, tightening his hold on the program. When Tron stubbornly refused to cooperate, the User decided to try a slightly different tactic; he reached out with his free hand, and began tracing a line down from Tron's cheek and jaw, along his neck and over his collarbone, before finally coming to a stop most of the way down his torso. He repeated the motion a second, then third time, following the path of the blow that, if Tron had been human, would have gutted him like a fish; the damaged code had been repaired not long after the attack as part of Clu's repurposing – an admittedly 'perfect' fix that had nevertheless been checked over by Sam himself, and, recently, Alan – but Tron still immediately understood what he was tracing, if the shivering was anything to go by. “We've talked about this,” Sam reminded him, affecting exasperation.

 

“But that was-,” Tron began to protest, caught off guard by Sam's sudden apparent mood shift.

 

“And we already agreed on it,” Sam completely overrode his protests, inwardly cheering at the successful distraction; someday – probably sooner than he'd think – Tron was going to catch on to all of his ploys to distract him, and he'd have to think up something new. That day wasn't today, though, thankfully.

 

“New information necessitates-,” Tron tried countering rapidly, but Sam was on a roll.

 

“So let's not start looping over a _resolved_ dialogue, Tron,” Sam finished with an overly dramatic but vague hand-wave. Unfortunately, Tron proved resistant to mind tricks from fake Jedis, as he finally resorted to using his superior strength and better position for leverage to put some distance between them, then shuffle off the bed entirely. Sam watched as Tron's posture, normally perfectly straight and professional, hunched inward on itself; inwardly, he groaned.

 

“If I had managed to fulfill my functions that day, none of _It_ would have happened. Here, or out there with you,” Tron said with finality, like the inescapable truth he believed it to be. Sam sat up, then scooted to sit at the edge of the bed.

 

“If Clu hadn't decided to go off the deep end, if my Dad had fixed things or left a note, if the MCP hadn't digitized him way back in the beginning... All kinds of things could have happened differently, but we're stuck with things the way they turned out, so all we can do is work toward making the future better.” He reached out to capture Tron's hand, then gave it a brief shake to make the program look at him. Smiling at him got Sam a weak imitation in return, and an idea.

 

He fixed Tron with a playfully assessing stare, “Come on, do you seriously think you're responsible for everything? That things only happen the way they do because of you? 'Cause I've gotta say that's awfully conceited of you; what will Alan say when I tell him you're getting a big head?”

 

Tron mouthed 'big head?' with a look that clearly conveyed the incomprehensibility of Users, then actually began to tentatively feel at his head with his free hand; perhaps he had a glitch in his render as well? Sam laughed, then yanked him back onto the bed, and rolled on top of him.

 

“Sam? Sam, pause. We need to be going soon; you agreed to meet Relays 3 through 14's data pushers as soon as your schedule allowed, and it will take time to drive there.”

 

“... Busy.”

 

“ _Sam._ Please.”

 

“...”

 

“... We can resume afterward.”

 

“... Fine. After.”

 

Sam reluctantly retreated from the bed, fruitlessly trying to put his hair to rights; Tron followed him off the bed, not a hair out of place – and how did he _do_ that? - although his circuitry was currently a rather strong amethyst; some days, Sam suspected he was getting a bit of a _thing_ for the various shades of purple, and he wasn't sure that that wasn't a good thing.

 

Tron's circuitry had just about bled color back to its usual blue-white by the time they hit street level, and he spoke again, “Is there something I can do to 'work toward making the future better' for that?” His gaze was locked to where the scar hid in his hair, but Sam was pretty sure he was talking about more than the obvious.

 

“Not really; scars don't have a quick fix like texture-mapping glitches. I mean, people sell creams and stuff that are supposed to help, but I figure it's easier to accept that it's there, and live my life, instead of obsessively focusing on it, and getting rid of it, while my life passes me by. Eventually, it won't even affect me anymore.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Scars fade with time.”


End file.
